The dull round of matins and vespers, the routine of lessons, the silent refectory meals, went on year after year with little variation. The boy François simply accepted them as did the rest; but, unlike some of his comrades, he found food for mirth, silent, gentle, or boisterous, where no other saw cause for amusement. Once a week a sober line of gray-clad boys, with here and there a watchful priest, filed through the gay streets to mass at St. Eustache or Notre Dame. He learned, as he grew, to value these chances, and to look forward with eager anticipation to what they brought him. During these walks the quick-minded François saw and heard a hundred things which aroused his curiosity. The broad gardens of the Luxembourg, the young fellows at unrestricted play, the river and the boats, by degrees filled him with keen desire to see more of this outer world, and to have easy freedom to roam at will. It was the first flutter of wings longing for natural flight. Before they set out on these journeys, a good father at the great gateway said to them as they went by: "Look neither to the right nor to the left, my children. ’T is a day of prayer. Remember!" Alas! what eyes so busy as those of François? "Look at this—at that," he would cry to the lads close to him. "Be quiet, there!" said the priests’ low voices; and on this Francis’s droll face would begin to express the unspoken delight he found in the outer world of men and things. This naughty outside world kept calling him to share its liberty. The boy liked best the choir, where his was the most promising voice. Here was happiness such as the use of dexterous hands or observant eyes also gave him. Religion was to him largely a matter of formal service. But in this, as in secular education, the individuality of the creature may not be set aside without risk of disaster. For all alike there was the same dull round, the same instruction. Nevertheless, the vast influence of these repeated services, and of the constant catechism, he continued to feel to his latest day. He was emotional and imaginative, fond of color, and sensitive to music; but the higher lessons of the church, which should control the life of action, were without effect on a character which was naturally one of exceptional levity. Such a mind has small power to apply to the conduct of life the mere rules laid down for its guidance, and is apt to accept as personally useful only what comes from the lessons of experience. *II* _In which François becomes a choir-boy, and serves two masters, to the impairment of his moral sense._